Hunting Public Lands

Yep, that's my deer tag. As you will notice, there are no punches. I had a deer yesterday at about 125 yards that I was thinking about taking and when I hesitated, someone bumped the doe he was chasing and they all took off. I had a couple questionable shots but I decided against shooting.

Two nights ago we were walking back to the truck and spotted an elk on the opposite ridge so yesterday morning I got up there before day-break and spotted a small herd on the next ridge over. I called my buddy John up and told him I had found some elk so he grabbed one of his boys from school and we headed up for a quick evening hunt. We knew it was going to be cutting it close by heading up so late be we figured we could get to where the elk were before shooting hours ended. Johnny kicked ass up the ridge and we got to where the elk were that morning with about a half-hour to spare. Unfortunately, as fricken elk hunting would have it, the elk were on the ridge I had hunted that morning.

We made a quick decision to hoof it down to the end of the ridge to see if we could spot them close enough to shoot across the ravine. We knew it we be a pretty long shot but we had to try. It took us a few minutes; ducking behind trees and sneaking along the edge of the park we were on but we did manage to get to around 350 yards. It was a long shot but doable. Since John and I could only shoot bulls in that area and all we could see were cows and one spike, Johnny would have to shoot.

We put the sticks up and Johnny took aim. It took a little while to find a target and make sure he was shooting at a cow that was clear from others and one that was standing broad-side. With just a few minutes left of shooting light, one of the cows bolted and then they all took off. We could only see four or five of the elk from our position but when they took off, there were actually about two dozen in that herd. Somebody walked up from below and spooked them. Nobody got a shot.

I shouldn't bitch because I've done quite well on public grounds the last few years. I've shot three elk in five years with my bow and I always seem to have meat in the freezer. It is a bummer though when you put that much work into putting a kid on elk and then have someone bust them out of there. It happened twice yesterday and with my plans to spend Thanksgiving with my family all next week, my big-game hunting is over for the year so as they say, I'll be eating that tag.

Keep 'em where they live...